The Belfast News Letter of 10 December 1914 carried an article about Private Hamilton Rea of the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles returning home to Dungannon, having been wounded by an English bullet which penetrated his lung which, at the time of reporting, hadn't been extracted. He went to France with the first Expeditionary Force and took part in all of the fighting from Mons to Ypres. He described the fighting as desperate and said that all 21 officers of the Battalion has either been killed or wounded, and the men of the regiment reduced from 1,900 to 200. When he was on outpost duty at Ypres, a British shrapnel shell struck a tree and one of the bullets struck him on the back, penetrating his lung.
(A previous article in the same paper on 20 November 1914 had simply said that Private Hamilton Rea had written from France to his wife at Milltown, Dungannon, that he had been wounded, but was in hospital and doing well.)
